Podcasts

As Liz said, we’re in Monterey at the Internet Librarian Conference. It’s great to be here and to see and talk to the people who write the blogs and articles that inspire me regularly. I attended a great session this afternoon on podcasting and videocasting. Topeka and Shawnee County Library’s digital branch manager David King was one of the panel speakers.

I am thinking about podcasting as a training tool. What if we had monthly or even weekly podcasts on a technology topic? More and more library staff members have MP3 players now and could use them to listen to these podcasts.

I’m not sure that I’m ready for videocasting, but I do like to think about the use of videos for training, too. I like the idea of creating short video tutorials on technology topics. These tutorials could be used and viewed independently or as a follow-up to face-to-face training. The tutorials could be created to meet the needs of NEKLS libraries. Hmm… maybe I’ll soon be sending out a casting call notice for some technology video actors??!!

I remember when I first started using the web. I was giddy over all of the things I could find and could not stop thinking about the possibilities. Now, over a decade later, I still feel pretty excited about the web.

I’ve noticed a similar sort of excitement in the air in the last few weeks… this time over podcasts. I have had at least three people tell me they are seriously ga-ga over finding and downloading podcasts to their iPods. I think there was a wave a while back, where people got really, really excited about the coolness of downloading music. Now I think there’s some buzz in the air over how cool it is to find content, download it to your player, and have it available to listen to at your convenience.

Are you new to the world of podcasting? Wikipedia helps explain what a podcast is.

Are you a podcast lover? What do you listen to? About which resources are you most excited? I’ve heard several people mention NPR podcasts. What else?